


Winter Quartet

by RealHidden



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Balcony Duet, Drugs, F/M, Modern AU, Other, loads of swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RealHidden/pseuds/RealHidden
Summary: Set in a modern present-ish AU.  Erik and Christine are in the early years of their marriage. She runs a graphic design business, he runs a theatre downtown. They are a few years into renovations/historical society approved retrofits, and a few weeks into the hell that is Nutcracker season. One of Erik's employees might have a cool international classical music hookup for them.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 15
Kudos: 7





	1. The Friedman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sfiddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sfiddy/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Balcony Duet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16167050) by [sfiddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sfiddy/pseuds/sfiddy). 



> This is my love letter to sfiddy and their Balcony Duet series.  
> Go read the real thing.  
> Enjoy some sweet dorkuses being happy and falling in love, instead of thinking about the reality of plague times.  
> It might hit the exact right note of escapism you didn't even know you needed.  
> I escaped so hard I started writing again.  
> And totally shamelessly ripped off someone else's AU and characters. And probably stuck them in the wrong part of the world, maybe the wrong timeline, definitely put not quite the right words in their mouths. 
> 
> Picasso said find the best artists, and then steal their shit.  
> But I usually ask first. 
> 
> Recommended listening- Hilary Hahn playing R Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending with Camarata Salzburg. It's on the youtube channel 'violin network'. It stole my heart.  
> _____________________________________________________________

**The Friedman**

Erik just needed a minute. 

Just five minutes. Twenty.

Matinee days were always brutal. Nutcracker was a few stops past too much. The acid trip colours, the brassy music, the children everywhere- tiny ones, sugar high. Children in the house, the choir, the corps. The theatre's everyday baseline of noise elevated, higher-pitched. _Shrill_. The intense chaperone moms, the orchestra; a constant ebb and flow of new people. Of wired, curious, staring kids en masse. Literal yellow busloads of them. Not his wheelhouse. 

And today it was compounded by the glare. The winter sun was at full spectrum white, dazzling off concrete, glass and snow, deceptively inviting- wickedly cold. It illuminated the puffy clouds forming at smokestacks and vents along the skyline.

Everyone else was just starved for it, giddy on the light. They flung the drapes and blinds open in the offices, the lobby, lighting every corner and dust mote. Kids ran up and down the sidewalk under the marquee, solar powered. It was the city's first sunny day in a good week, the theatre people's first since when-November? They had become nocturnal, subterranean. The crew stood outside on the ramp, breath in clouds, smokers and non smokers alike, just soaking it in. That thing in the sky- if it wasn't a fresnel, what was it?

Erik needed some quiet. Indirect lighting. A few minutes of not-this. He wanted to go up to his office, take the beautiful, quadruple strength tylenol he had just scored from the stage manager -her private reserve, top shelf, none of that generic first aid kit bullshit. He wanted to call his wife; just to hear her voice, her laugh. Count the hours until he could collapse into bed beside her.

But he had company. He was being tailed. Haunted-from the wings to the lobby to the admin door- by a tall spectre in black, with a paint spattered apron. 

Earlier in the day, he would have waited. Let them catch up, asked if there was something they needed, dealt with it. Now... maybe he could get ahead of them. The trick to avoiding people was to not look like you were avoiding them. It helped to be tall. Long strides. Look purposeful. _Managerial._ And book it. 

No such luck. This ghost had some moves. 

She caught him on the fifth step. 

"Hey, Mr B, could I, um, talk to you? For a minute?"

He sighed. So close. 

"Of course," 

It was... Lily. Maizen? Morrison. No. Something Italian? A tall woman, a fast walker, apparently- with an unexpectedly shy little voice for her frame. Good with paint and power tools and epoxy. Bad with people. Which could be endearing, in its way. 

But still. A painter chasing him upstairs and asking to talk for a minute was rarely good news. Usually painful. He hated the _talk for a minute_. It didn't matter how many times he did it; he could never get used to it.

Did she find a better paying job? That bar wasn't exactly high. Hopefully it was a good gig. Postgrad, union work- something with forward momentum. She was capable, a clever artist. And so reliable. It would be a shame to see her go. And a massive pain in the ass, absolutely impossible to replace her at this point in the season. 

"So, my cousin? She's Hero Morena,"

Lily _Morena._

He blinked hard. "Your cousin is Hero Morena."

"I figured you'd know who she was. She, um. She just won the Friedman prize? She gets a Stradivarius for three years?"

"That's incredible,"

She gave him a weak smile. Nodded. He found he started nodding too, trying to coax the conversation out of her. 

"Lily...That's wonderful news." She took a breath. He waited for her to speak. Nothing. She grabbed a handful of her hair, twisted a good solid rope around her fingers. 

"Thank you for thinking to tell me," he tried. "That's... thank you." 

Maybe that was all. She seemed to be done, so he turned to leave, feeling a little lighter on his way up the stairs. At least one young, hardworking artist out there was being properly recognized. Rewarded. 

But as soon as they weren't facing each other, Lily found her voice again.

"It's just, I told her she should probably call you?" 

He froze.

"Because she's home for a while. You know, in town. She wanted to do, like, some preview concerts before her tour? Maybe in January? So the people she grew up with can hear it. I gave her your number. I got it from Grayson. If that's ok,"

"Ok,"

And now his jaw hit the floor. That was fine. It could stay there. Just fine.

Hero Morena was a local kid made good, from the rural commuter belt north of the city. High school English teacher mom, pharmacist dad, sporty athlete brothers. Not underprivileged by any means, but from such an unassuming place. A boring place. An average girl from nowhere. 

She'd picked up her first violin during an afterschool program. 

And it had very much agreed with her. And they had gone to some interesting places together. 

The Curtis school- not a full ride, but with a decent handful of scholarships, a good showing after grad. The North-Hayes Emerging artist prize, some kind of exchange season with the London Symphony. The momentum was building. She was snapped up by Frankfurt for Vivaldi and Vieuxtemps, Academy of St Martin in the Fields for Chopin. She somehow ended up in the string section at a Royal Opera House evening and subsequent Asian tour with Bjork, a piano concerto series in Seoul, before settling down in Germany, as far as anyone could tell.

Erik had bought the vinyl press of Morena's Elgar concerto with the Frankfurt RadioSinfonie. The classic fm nerds were going crazy for the conerto, but Erik mainly bought it to get his hands on the B Side, the violin sonata. It was a tiny run from a tiny hipster label, his first purchase in decades from the city's last surviving record shop. He'd felt vaguely, smugly cool buying it. The manbun shop owner had nodded approvingly as he rang it up, both of them in on the secret.

Erik had practically worn the thing out, which somehow made it sound even better. The andante aged like wine. He began to notice each breath in the interpretation, the generous give, considerate take. Morena's playing was sublime, on its own level, but the German kid on piano wasn't slacking. Erik realised he had inadvertently woven the second movement into the soundscape of his first years with Christine. The tapestry of the marriage he had never expected. Yes, stormy moments, pops of surprise, but encompassed in that flowing harmony. And somehow made even more precious with that bit of static worn into the ridges and grooves. 

And now the soloist from his favourite record was in town, with a bit of a Stradivarius, looking for a venue to play. She had his number. All perfectly normal and fine. 

His pocket buzzed. 

He and Lily stared at each other, panicked. 

He fumbled for the phone. London calling on the vodafone- he turned the screen towards Lily. Was it her? She nodded emphatically.

Managerial, he reminded himself. Do not, do NOT sound like a kid jumping off a yellow schoolbus running in circles yelling about the STRAADDD. Managerial. 

"Hello,"

Another smaller, younger-than-expected voice introduced herself, wondered if she could swing by and run an idea by him, sometime, she wasn't sure what their booking process was like-Only if he had the time, obviously. 

Erik wasn't sure if there was a tiny-voice gene in the Morena family, or if he was just getting old. He hoped Grayson still had some of that MacCallan 12 they'd hidden in the deposit safe.

 _The Foundation_ would be calling him. About insurance.

Hero Morena was really sorry. 

"No, it's understandable,"

"It just.... it sounds like such a dick thing to say ," she laughed. "Ughh. They call everyone. They called my landlord before I could bring it home. They called my parents before I could visit for Christmas! They wouldn't let me drive with it in my own car, I had to rent a better car for it." 

"Really?"

"Yeah! It got a better seat on the plane than I did, too," 

He laughed with her, but his heart sank a little. How much to insure a concert with a priceless, centuries old, irreplaceable Strad-

"The venue has to have something insane, like five million. There's a specific name for it- I'm so sorry. They explained it all, but I was just so overwhelmed. They'll set it all up anyway- OH. And they're buying. The prize. It's program development, so the prize covers everything. Oh no it sounds like I'm saying 'oh you better spend all this money for the privilege of me trying to book with you,' They just need to get some details" 

A red light flashed through some papers he'd thrown over his old school desk phone- a split second later he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, a knock on his office door- a breathless kid from the box office. It must be one of the high school credit babies. They always ran up the stairs. They didn't understand phones with lines and buttons. God bless them, everyone. 

"Line Two for you, Mr. B," 

"I gave them your office number, not this one. I wasn't sure you wanted people passing it around- It'll probably be this British guy called Terry. He's actually pretty cool. Anyway, if Big T says we're all good, I can just...invite myself over. Sometime. I don't know if you're available at all today-" 

He had No Time. No Time for the rest of the year. His schedule was double booked, triple if you counted this evening's handshake kiss champagne and donor thank yous in the lobby while they struck one show and began to load in the next backstage. Which he did- 

"Anytime. Literally. Please. Any time," 

She laughed. "See you later," 


	2. The Lark

**The Lark**

She was just a kid. 

Well, not exactly. But not too far removed from student. Cartoonish, boxing-glove sized wool mittens on her hands, messy bun wobbling around on top of her head as she looked around the lobby.

For the first time Erik was slightly grateful for the sun; the place was sparkling, the black and white marble tiles catching spots of light from the chandelier, individual crystals glowing and refracting the light. If he couldn't have the cloud cover for himself, at least the theatre could take advantage and show off a little. For the lady from the record. 

Erik might not have been able to pick her out if he didn't have her photo on an album cover- she wore one of those black puffy coats all the university kids seemed to wear. The beat up, nondescript violin case over her shoulder was a solid clue now, but in another half hour she'd be surrounded by identical young orchestra members in identical coats carrying identical cases. Obviously she'd have had the easier time winning in the spot the stranger game any way-he never won that one.

She looked across the room, past the doors full of white light, and saw him, hanging back in the relative shadows. The lady from the record gave him a little half-wave and came over. She took off her mitts and shoved them into her pockets on the way. She reached out to shake his hand. She had a concertmaster's grip and the smile to match: confident. Warm and easy. 

Lily must have given her a flawless rundown on _the Mask, the Face_. This part was going better than it usually did. Hero's eyes rested on the mask, she was definitely checking things out, not pretending to not see it. But their eyes met in what he assumed was the normal time frame for strangers meeting. And that's where she tried to look when she spoke to him- at his eyes when she spoke, at his eyes and his mouth when she listened. Not bad. So far. 

"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice. I remember when this place was all boarded up. This is so cool," 

"We're getting there, there's still a lot of work to do," He rubbed the back of his neck. Something was off. It wasn't the face. And it wasn't her. This was new. Something electric, crackling- static in the air.

"Lil says it has this real vibe. You know, you come in and it feels like, 'Now I am _at the theatre_ ,'" 

"I hope that's a good thing. It won't be much, compared with what you're used to,"

"I'm from Stone Ridge, " she laughed. "I'm used to drinking in a field behind a scrap yard. I mean they've got a Starbucks at the park and ride now, so... it's pretty fancy."

A tiny woman marched into the vestibule and past them, blasting them with a gust of freezing outside air. She had a massive brace of tutus in dry cleaner's plastic strung over one shoulder, and a dozen even-tinier children following her in a line. They were still in their coats and boots and snowsuits, but heavily made up, hair severely slicked back or pinned into buns, laden with backpacks and little rolling suitcases. The ballerina at the end of the line tripped on her own feet as she stared at the masked man over her shoulder, her wide eyes and shocked expression exaggerated by the stage makeup-

The chaperone mom caught up with them, heels clicking as she came off the door mats and onto the the marble tile. She scooped up the girl up and herded her along, whispering something about why we don't stare at people- 

Meanwhile, a search party came out of the balcony onto the gallery above them-Erik recognized Grayson's baritone, the stage manager's world-weary alto.

"He's not there?""

"No," 

"Well do you know where he is?|"

"No! Why would I- I don't know. Did you try his office?"

" We wouldn't still be looking for him if he was in his office," 

"Kind of not my problem. You're welcome for helping,"

"Sorry."

"Down there!" 

Grayson and the Stage Manager and the Volunteer Kid appeared, looking down over the railing, ready for their big trio musical number- mystery solved. 

  
  


"Erik, it's Sylvie. She's missing a bunch of invoices," said Grayson, winded, coming down the stairs to the main floor.

"Can you deal with it?"

"I thought I did. But she disagrees. And now she wants you. She called me something in French, and I don't think it was a compliment." 

"I told her I could take a message for you, and she called me something in French, too," the kid added, following his boss down the stairs at an easy sprint.

"Wonderful. Tell her I'll get back to her. Please," 

The pair completed their lap of the building, disappearing back into the admin offices, muttering about accountants.

Hero looked up at Erik, eyes narrowed.

"Were you lying about having time for this today?"

Caught. Again. By the Morena women. 

"I'm sorry,"

 _"What?_ No _, I'm_ sorry! I am so dumb. It's Nutcracker Christmas Carol time. It's _year end._ I am so sorry. You must think I'm such a- you should have said," she hitched the case up on her shoulder, started to pull her giant mitts back on.

"No, I just-"

"No no, you must think I'm so- ugh. Please. Please. I'm on holidays right now, Sir. Please. I'm off work. Don't let me interrupt yours-I can come back at a better time for you. Any time. Really."

"I got impatient. I have your record. The Elgar," he said lamely,

"You _what_? NO....Really? "

"Really,"

"I've never had anyone say that to me before," she said after a moment. 

"You might have to get used to it,"

She breathed out, a long whistling sigh, as she realised he was right.

The static bristled up again, a flare-

"We- honestly. I'm not lying this time- we honestly do have about a half hour before call time. If you did want to see the auditorium, how it sounds-

"Yes. Seriously? Yes! I was just pretending not to be impatient, too. I really did want to check it out," 

He held the door for her, 

She went halfway down the aisle and turned back to check out the balcony, wait for her host to catch up- then down to the front, to see the stage, the orchestra pit. 

"Lil says the acoustics here are to die fo- OH. HEY,"

She made a beeline for the Steinway. 

"This is somebody's baby. Is this _your_ baby?" He nodded. 

She looked around for lambs and mice before saying "You play. You have one of these, you _play_ , Sir. You're not fucking around, "

He flushed, falling irremediably in love, as she checked the thing out like a gearhead meeting a Porsche.

"That's beautiful. I... have a few friends who play these," she said, straightening up, eyes mischievious. "So you got like, five mortgages?"

"Don't remind me," he groaned

"We're living the dream, Sir!' 

"Erik. Please."

"Erik." She took a deep breath. "Ok. You show me yours, I'll show you mine, right?"

She instinctively went to the first violin's chair, whipped off the mitts, her scarf, the giant coat, draped them over the chair before kneeling down and reverently snapping the fastenings on the case.

She turned and brought it over to him, stepping into the light

The static bristled up around him. It was the violin. The thing was alive. It had a gravity, and it pulled them in. 

It was not what he expected. This wasn't a beauty. It didn't look overly special- some curious scrollwork, but otherwise, worn edges. It was so much more worn than he had expected, the restorations structural only, the varnish allowed to fade. But the thing _pulsed._ Something important-maybe even dangerous. A reliquary.

"If you tilt it- here, you can see ...there's his handwriting. Well, just the numbers. But his. From when he made it,"

She held the violin out to him- just a suckerpunch, that immediate trust in him. He took it hesitantly, trying to hold his hands steady. It was weightless, so fragile in his grasp. The static of it buzzed under his fingers; this ancient, sacred, hollow little thing.

He carefully tipped it the way she'd showed him. The light slanted in under the F. There it was. The maker's mark. _Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1705_

"Take it back?" he whispered. She did, quickly, seriously, as if it might burn him

"That is terrifying," he told her, 

"I know, right?" she said quietly. It might hear them. Stradivari might hear them. 

  
  


"Before I got it all I could think was I want it, I want it so bad, I couldn't wait, you know I was so greedy to play it- but -it's so different now that it's real. 

When they give it to you- it's like you're in Harry Potter getting your wand. They take you down into this vault, and there's this guy who just restores old violins. Takes care of the old Italian violins. His family. For hundreds of years. He gets you to play on your own, then he brings you famous ones to try. He gave me this huge Guarneri- it shakes you. It's like you have pins and needles all down here. I was so scared. It was cool to like- wrestle with that, for a minute but I couldn't imagine- maybe a bigger player with massive hands. I was worried this was what they were all like, which made no sense- But he said that was just one of his jokes. He says that one is nicknamed the Boneshaker and he gives it to all the short people who go down there. And he thought that was the funniest shit. Then he brought me this one. And he said this was the only one he would let me take - and _she had been waiting for me for a very long time_. 

I am freaking the fuck out."

"I'd only considered the reward part. Win some money, get an instrument that's so much better than the crap I could afford at your age-" 

"Right? But then he hands it to you- and you think- how many other people were turned down, who should have this instead? Or how many were in this exact moment, in the past, receiving this- and am I letting them down? I have to _find something._ I can't waste this- the time is just going to go, and I have to find something, do something to deserve it- and what if I'm wrong? I'm used to only being able to disappoint people in like.. the immediate vicinity. in earshot. Who are alive currently,"

He tried to think of what a teacher might say in this situation. A mentor. Someone wiser, 

"It's a big responsibility, but you might be overthinking that sense of obligation- is it a prize for reinventing the wheel, or for leaving a legacy? Or for work you're already doing?"

She nodded.

His heart wrenched for her. Be careful, gentle. 

"You have a repertoire. You're not starting from nowhere. You can start with what you have and see what fits."

"Well, when you say something sensible like that, you make it sound like it's not the end of the fucking world,"

She smiled a little, and his heart glowed. 

"I mean, if you want to start ruling things out right now. I could listen. As a favour to you. I could listen to you play something. No ulterior motive." 

She laughed

"No, yeah, no- I mean, I have to, right?"

"You don't _have_ to, I was only- "

"No I mean, it's the whole point. Of everything. Playing it. I was actually trying something. Before I got here, I'm still pretty warm. I've wanted to do it for a while. You know what, maybe I could get your opinion- really though. Critical. Be harsh." 

"Promise."

"OK. Ok. Just a sec- Ugh. I'm such a mess. Sorry, Just a sec. "

It was fascinating. He tried not to be a weird older man with a weird hidden face staring at her- but it was fascinating. Of course he knew hundreds of musicians, he'd grown up in music, always surrounded himself with it- but it wasn't everyday he saw this. This was an Olympic sprinter passing his car on the freeway, an Olympic diver twisting and spiraling off his apartment rooftop gazebo into the complex pool. She stretched and warmed up, fast, methodical; hands, neck, arms. Something settled and clicked as she tightened up the bow, the bow worth a house. Piece by piece, the kid went away and the soloist emerged. She changed her posture, changed her breathing, her gaze.

She tuned up, testing, her own little sound check, brisk and quiet, not much to do,

Erik found his heart was pounding, anxious for her, for _it_. The static crawled over his skin.

She put the violin to her collarbone, lowered it, bit her lip. She adjusted her stance, again. Frowned. The nervous kid resurfaced, just for a moment. 

"Sorry, it's _just different enough._ The balance. You know?" 

She did it again. Transformed. She breathed in and began.

Vaughan Williams. The Lark Ascending. A whisper, a breeze. That first grey morning light, diffused by a veil of cloud. Then she flew closer-a little grainy brown sugar, then smoothing out, rippling out, intensifying. She put the grit back into it for a moment and caught an updraft. That control. Gliding so slowly he could hear each grain of vibrato. She faded a little further away. And up. The sun rising. Constable and Turner sun, gentle, sepia hues, not this new world winter glare.

 _That control_ , every degree of each millisecond. 

More of those smooth ripples, layering over each other, spreading out to the edge. It shimmered as she looped up up up. She was high overhead now, far away. And there it was. Birdsong. She teased and spun it into the finest, finest single thread and then unspooled it across the ceiling. Ethereal, a loose silver line trilling at the very top of the hall, down your scalp under your skin into your spine

His heart broke open. Every worry, every moment of cold, or doubt, every moment missing Christine, every child staring or shrinking back from him, and all those older regrets, his constants, those older sadnesses- they all bled out into the inside of his chest. He was straight crying. No way to hide it from her, from the crew and the dancers he could feel rather than see or hear, in the wings, leaning over the balcony railing.

She dove through the sky blue sky-flowed down- among the trees, closer to the field. Earthbound double stops, every blade of grass and insect humming in the soil in the meadow- that mellow hum from the record- then on to the final solo measures- and she soared away. Left them all resting in the grass, under the shade trees swaying gently in the breeze.

"That's about as far as I got so far," she said quietly once she came back down. She looked over. Saw his eyes. She dug around in her coat pocket and handed him one of those little travel packets of tissue; a solid, discreet backhand pass. Then she just sat down beside him, casually let him cry it out for a bit. 

"When I played with St Martin, they invited me on this weekend trip- the ladies. We stayed in this amazing old house in the forest. Like, a 16th century woodmans' lodge- gamekeepers? Thatched roof. It was like a fairy tale. We were just - you know, just drinks, hikes, no phones- except in a Shakespeare house. Or a Constable painting- 

One of the older ladies- She found _some larks ascending_. And we all went out with her to the meadow and just watched them. Listened to them. Just drink some wine and lie back in the meadow and listen to the larks. I know a lot of people think he's overdone. Williams. or it can get shrill,"

Erik nodded. "I used to agree," he tried, but it just started the waterworks up again. No, not ready to talk yet. She pulled her chair over closer, nearly shoulder to shoulder. Just them. 

"Here's the thing, though," she said, as if it was just a normal conversation. Maybe she made a grown man cry every day? Was this just part of the job? 

"Here's the thing I saw. That made me want to try it. You can't fly it up down up down in 2 dimenional spikes. you know- didididiiii didididiiiI used to think it sounds like the heart beeper . Monitor. At the hospital. I mean, this baby doesn't _get shrill_ , unless you put way too much weight on it- which- ugh!- but it has this gold thread through it,"

Silver he had thought, but he wasn't about to keep choking up and sniffling at this girl. Wasn't about to risk it by disagreeing. 

"But the larks- I don't know if they're using thermals, or what-" she described a widening oval with the end of her bow- figure eights expanding out across her chair, across his, lazy switchbacks, looping higher and higher "It's that sustained singing. They just sing for hours. They learn new songs- they're.. Anyway. If you keep it quiet,and slow down even when you're going fast- you get the effect. You know. The doppler. The song changes if it's coming towards you or flying away... It's honestly not the world's best sounding violin, or the most beautiful- you know. But it has this - gravity? Importance to it? And it responds- like fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a degree- and you can get the purity- but it has this little burr, this little grit- I love her. I love her." 

She sighed. And just sat with him a bit. A new mother with her new, weighty five million dollar famous baby. Getting used to her new weight of responsibility while her friend? What was he? Her companion? Fan? Guy she had met 20 minutes ago, currently openly weeping, composed himself. But to his surprise, it was honestly more pleasant than embarrassing. Peaceful. No wonder everyone wanted to bring her around the world with them.

"Do they need the stage right now?"

He checked his phone, relieved for something to do with his hands, an excuse to look down- shook his head. 

"We've got a little time." His voice held steady. Good, good. 

"Would it be ok if I tried onstage? Just to hear the room- super fast. I won't touch anything,"

"Please." 

"What should I play?"

He spluttered, at a loss. Shrugged and held his hands out helplessly to her. "Anything,"

She shook her head. She was having none of it. "Come on. It's your house. Who do you like?" 

"Would- could you- maybe the Elgar? The sonata,"

"I'm probably a bit rusty, it's been a while since I touched it. But, yes. For you. Do you know it? Do you want to play?" she gestured with her bow towards the piano,

"Next time?" he asked quietly. "I won't want to stop, and I"ll end up trying to cancel the show and be murdered by the little lambs. Or the stage mothers. "

"Next time." She grinned and went up.


	3. Paris. Ruined.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik may have just booked a concert series when he was supposed to be going on honeymoon with his wife.  
> Plus ca change...

He had wanted to take Christine to Paris for their honeymoon. And Florence and Seville. And Rome and Venice and Salzburg and London and Prague and Barcelona and Berlin and Istanbul and Kauai and Marrakesh and Vienna and Havana and Chiang Mai.

  
If there were world enough and time.

  
Paris.  
He would fly for her.

  
A year later than they had planned, Erik finally renewed his passport, before busy season.  
He went to a camera shop across town, to keep the ordeal of the photos as far away as possible from his real life. Begged the helpful girl out front to let the surly-looking older man behind the counter handle this. Him. _It_.

Erik was relieved when she finally relented, finally stopped telling him no, no, it was totally ok.  
It wasn’t that he’d had a great time with men handling it. The Surly Man just seemed like the type who would be less inclined to discuss it. Afterwards.

  
It was the afterwards, that change in dynamic. Erik blamed reality tv. The tide was turning, he was less-frequently terrifying, too inhuman, too hideous. People just didn’t scream like they used to in the good old days. More often, he was rendered and presumed tragic- ridiculous, unintelligent, weak. He was pitiable, he needed sympathy, he needed swaddling and carefulness.

  
Oh the poor thing. Look at him walk and talk. He thinks he’s people. So brave. Such an inspiration. Oh no, you actually are so beautiful, it’s what’s inside that counts, oh the poor poor not right poor sad sad man.

  
She was a quick thinker, though, the girl in the camera shop. Considerate. Maybe would have been totally ok, after all. Before leaving Erik and Big Surly to it, she went into the back room and pulled out a rolling rack piled high with boxes. She used it to block him from the window and street door. Gave him a little shelter while the deed was done.

Erik had thrown the supplemental notes from his doctor into the application envelope, along with the stamped folder of poisonous photos, the block letter forms- might as well, couldn’t hurt. He threw the whole thing into the mailbox like it was going to explode, and peeled away, tires practically smoking.

  
He preferred not to fly, obviously. Preferred to drive places as a distant second choice, if that.  
Overall he preferred to stay put, feet on the ground, in their corner of the city. It wasn’t so much preference as physics, gravity; the life of a river in its riverbed. Flow along the path of least resistance.

  
It was just easier, less draining, his daily route of people who were used to him. Double takes and stares had a weight to them. A cost. He was left with that much more energy for anything else, everything else, when he could forget the weight of his difference more often than he had to remember it. When it wasn’t everybody’s first time.

But he would fly to Paris for Christine.

It had been funny, the first time. The last time.

  
Of course he had been much younger then. So far removed from his present self that it felt less like a memory, more like a story about a different person.

  
And it was easier to laugh at your terror when you were young and stupid, underage drunk on 20 dollar airport beer. And had an equally young and stupid friend, willing to wait for you while you fucked everything up by being too ugly and different.

  
It was their grad year trip, a week immersed in French language and culture in Paris, and too-cool-for-school Erik Brodeur and Josef motherfuckin’ Beale were going. With the class, yeah, but not _with the class_. They were just there for the cheap ticket and hotel. As soon as they landed they were going to ditch those assholes and drink absinthe out of a paper bag in Montmartre. And get themselves laid.

  
Unlikely.

  
But ideally.

  
Erik was alone, the only one left on the wrong side of security, waiting outside the uncover-your-face -in-private office. Josef was waiting for him, leaning heavily against the wall, having made it to the correct side of the glass that separated the safe from the still-dangerous.

  
They sat in a line, the no-face club, on their blue plastic airport chairs against the beige wall. They clutched their passports tightly, barely daring to breathe, guarding the secret portraits of their hidden selves.

  
Short dark woman in a niqab, short dark woman in a niqab, tall white gangly skeleton kid, black fabric mask over his mouth and absent nose, watch cap pulled low over his forehead and scarf pulled up to his ears, despite the heat. Long legs sticking out into the hallway. A tripping hazard for all who came in range. Next was a little girl waiting with her mother. She had two tiny, vicious front teeth, dimples and a sticky face, her uncovered hair in demolished pigtails, wild coils. She drooled and stared entranced at the odd person in the chair beside her. And at the end of the line, mother herself: a short dark woman in a niqab.

  
The little girl held out a piece of her cookie for Erik. It was the good shit, speckled with lint, broken and soggy and well gummed.

  
He pretended not to notice. What if he scared her, what if she screamed, what if she cried?

  
But then he he felt it, grinding against his cheekbone and brow, crumbs falling into his eyelashes.  
He laughed as the little girl tried to feed him his piece of the gross, slimy rusk through the side of his head. She drew a line of cakey mess from the corner of his eye down to his neck, crumbs piling up in the folds of his scarf. She was not pressing gently, laughing too now, a low gurgling noise- immensely pleased with herself.

  
The mother, terrified, pulled the girl across her lap, away from him.

  
Erik tried to stop laughing, but he had caught Josef’s eye through the glass, which set them both off, and there would be no stopping. His stomach lurched. Oh. _Oh_. Was it actually that funny, or was he going to puke?

  
The women around him froze, eyes wide. Who invited this asshole? Why wouldn’t he shut up? Was he laughing- gagging? There is no gagging in the ‘show your hidden face’ line! He was going to get them all killed.

  
The weary face-checking security agent came out for him, and Erik could _hear_ her eyes roll heavenwards. She asked the Lord why, why her, why this. She did not get paid enough for this bullshit, Lord.

  
“Sorry for -it,” Erik mumbled, after she had to look, compare his horror face to his horror photo. He retied the straps around the back of his head: replaced the mask, the hat, the scarf.

  
She tossed his passport and boarding pass across the desk, and dragged herself over to the door, ready to collect her next victim. “Just, Jesus. Just stay away from the bar. Ok? You’re a child. It’s seven in the goddamn morning. Would you please just leave. Please stop doing illegal things and just get on a plane and get out of my airport. I don’t want to see you again.”

  
Josef had revised their itinerary: drink and smoke in a nearby strip club all morning long, a jazz club in Montmartre all afternoon and evening, post up, never leave, until night, when they would either be invited to the after party, or would depart to wander the city in search of pussy and high adventure. Or another club. Or the same club. Depending. Sleep for two, three hours. Repeat.

  
More booze, more music. He had transformed, magically, into Paris Josef by the first night; somehow, without ever leaving his seat in the corner of the bar, procuring menthol cigarettes, a scarf, a pretentious hat, a ziploc bag of mushrooms. Erik didn’t recognize his room mate when he came through their shitty hotel lobby.

They faked their way through evening head count, but failed to materialize in the van taking everyone else somewhere else for dinner.

They sat under Pont bir Hakeim with the Eiffel tower sparkling overhead, did some shrooms down by the Seine and listened to the buskers- a trumpet, an old pickle barrel, two guitars. Once it kicked in, they took off. Walked the city until dawn. Cobblestones, statuary, dive bars, hills, lights.

They were here.

While the demoiselles de 24 hour Sexodrome had their charms, Erik did actually did want to see the city. In the daytime. When things were open. He was granted special leave from Josef, permitted to explore the capital. They would regroup in Montmartre, the square with all the caricature painters, for smoking and/or drinking whatever they could find that night.

  
Erik abandoned the class that morning with insouciance, foregoing the Tour Eiffel for the erotica museum, Notre Dame for the Garnier, the Louvre for the Musee d’Orsay for a beautiful blonde artiste rushing past him towards the metro. She had a half shaved hairstyle, charcoal-smudged fingers and an unstable armload of canvasses; demons and nudes. A few of them tumbled onto the pavement. Erik dove to retrieve them, offered to carry them for her, followed her back to her studio in St Ouen.

  
She let him stand closer and closer as she brought him through her collection of sculpted faces and hands. Let him lean against her, snake a thin hand around her thin waist, as she showed him unfinished nudes, glowering monsters, leering from canvas, brought to life in clay, in the private back room. And finally she took him up to her flat- flaking black paint, a leaky window looking over a graffitied, littered back alley, a creaking brass bed. He traded his first kiss and first blow job and first touch of a pair of breasts for the chance to sketch him bare-faced, shirtless.

  
He was more than fine with the transactional nature of the affaire. Would have sold organs for a second round. On a woman’s bed. In fucking Paris...

But instead she dragged him out to a show at another mouldy studio, then day drinking and some kind of pills at some loud punk thing in an abandoned factory. He let the Sculptor put the capsule on his tongue. Holy communion. He swallowed obediently. He wasn't sure what it was. Worth it, even if it killed him. He remembered Josef, almost too late.

  
The Sculptor sneaked them both in to a rough-looking Brazilian music club without paying cover, narrowly avoiding a beating on the dark steps. Josef wanted to leave, Erik refused, they parted ways. Not _not_ -amicably. Death and poisoning and beatings were a decent price to pay. Erik had to go on alone. His comrade understood. It had been an honour to serve together.

  
Erik was so wasted by that point that reality had taken on a stop motion quality, and words in any language were hard, his date was yelling at someone- an ex? The bouncers? She was so beautiful when she was angry. They were back on the street, must have been kicked out of the club after all, the sculptor was shouting at someone else now, in rapid fire french beyond drunk or sober Erik’s ability to comprehend.

  
She stormed away and he followed, hoping, daring. It was happening. He was going to have actual sex with an actual woman and wake up beside her in the morning in St Ouen in actual Paris.

  
But she shoved him into a taxi instead, told the driver to do unspeakable things to himself, to his mother. She slammed the door. _Bye, kid._

  
A minor setback. Young Erik had already determined he would throw his passport off the nearest bridge, his virginity at the first taker, disappear into the labyrinth of the city, live out his days getting laid by French artists with pierced nipples and mildewed black bedrooms in exchange for being their strange gargoyle muse. Glorious. Yes! This was a good death! He was king of the-

  
He was unceremoniously dumped out of the cab, head first onto the pavement. It had become apparent to the driver that the masked kid was more likely to vomit all over the seats than to produce any money for his fare.

  
As the sun rose over the city of love, Josef tripped over Erik, lying in the fetal position on the dank carpet outside their room. He dragged him inside,   
threw him onto the busted twin bed under the window, the worst one, the creakiest and most dubious-smelling of the two beds- most likely the same sheets as the guests before their stay. Fair was fair.

  
Josef had covered Erik’s ass all night, was now about to pull a double shift covering for him all day.

Brothers. Comrades.

  
And in the purest display of love, he left provisions on the crooked night stand: a mostly-full bottle of water, a bent menthol cigarette, a squashed foil pack of antacids and a pile of some kind of french aspirin-looking pills, half a stale day-old brioche, and a shitty lukewarm Dutch beer.

  
With a majestic swirl of his scarf, Paris Josef disappeared into the glaring morning to nurse his own hangover at the cafe next door, to commune with Rodin and sex workers. He left his room mate to vomit and pray for death alone.

  
Their brotherhood sealed, in that way of young men who are relative strangers, but find themselves needing to act heroically.

Suppressing fire. Throwing yourself on the grenade. Trying to help your hideous friend get laid in the City of Light and Love.

  
As they drifted apart over the years- no particular reason. Just university, different cities, kids, spouses, exes, more kids- Erik missed Beale. Fiercely, fondly. 

  
More than the Sculptor.

  
Erik had forgotten her name, or had never thought to ask what it was in the first place. He wondered if she still had her sketches of him, if someone unknowingly had him hanging on their wall: portrait of the skeleton as an idiotic, horny young man.

  
They had been grim, linear affairs, her sketches- dynamic, messy. He was surprised he had even noticed the art, given his obsession with the artiste, but it had caught at something in him. He had been so intrigued to see himself her way. The hypnotic movement of her wrist and stained fingers as she traced the shapes of him onto textured paper. Her fascination. Almost Reverent.

Erik almost remembered her hands at work in more detail than those same hands on his body. _Almost._

He wondered if she remembered his own enthusiastic, fumbling hands in the darkness of the club, in the awful hallway that smelled of drains.  
Hopefully not.  
That most ghastly, wonderful, lustful day of his young life. Stupid. So, so stupid.

But to go back to Paris now, with Christine-  
To have tickets to the opera, a back table chez Nadine, a luxurious bed, room service for days, a balcony overlooking a garden instead of an alley. To dance her home across Pont des arts, watch the sunset from the very point of Ile de la Cite.

  
They could bring absinthe in a paper bag, for the nostalgia- a la recherche de youth, bad decisions and regret.  
But she would prefer champagne. They would find some somewhere.

  
Would he tell her about his idiot younger self, his short-lived modelling and prostitution career? Would she laugh and become obsessed with finding the studio one day, the scene of the crime? Would she drag him through St. Ouen, finally admitting defeat, admitting he was right, they were more likely to be mugged than find a squatter’s flat from almost 30 years ago- let’s go back to the 6ieme.  
To rest by a fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg, her head in his lap, painterly sun overhead, bickering about where to go for dinner. Sunlight catching the strands of auburn in her hair, the rebellious mist of the fountain. Lifting her head to press a wine stained kiss on his lips.

But there was never enough time for the City of Love.

  
Their respective businesses had left no time for a honeymoon for the first year after the wedding, the second. So they would have to do it in pieces, in shoulder season. A week here, a four day escape there.

  
Christine had said let’s just go. Now. She wouldn’t mind the cold, people live everywhere all the time. Paris is Paris all year round. Let’s just go, _now_. It’s an ancient city, they have buildings. They will have places where we can be indoors. There will be roofs. There will be heating. It is not camping.

  
But he wanted to take her in the springtime. Flowers and fountains and green dappled light and cherry blossoms overhead against the blue sky, the grey stonework.

  
She conceded, but with a counteroffer. She wanted to go _somewhere_ now, this year, early next year. Now. In the winter, post Nutcracker frenzy, before something else came up to stop them. Because there would always be something to stop them.

  
And she wanted just the two of them. Wanted to take him away. Really away. Phones off. The two of them, truly alone and unreachable.  
Preferably somewhere hot. Within uber or hitchhiking range of a nice beach, but not near some hellscape resort. She would love a tiny cabin right by the ocean, a roof, a sink, three or four walls, a hammock, that’s it- but knew Erik would implode with boredom without a concert hall nearby. A city would be fine- oddly the best chance of privacy, the middle of a teeming city.

  
She was bringing him around to this idea of heat. She was a convincing presenter, his Christine. Unafraid to sleep her way to the top. Whatever it took to win.

  
A week in Cartagena in the old town, for blistering heat, for evening cocktails and salsa music and heat and champeta and bougainvillea growing up the houses and the Teatro Heredia and heat and the Spanish Inquisition and heat.

  
She found a five star with a detached garden suite. Promised him room service, rum and antiqueno, an absolute mountain of beautiful dark roast Columbian he could dive into, if he was going to keep making that noise abou the pool, enough to make his heart stop. Like Scarface, but coffee. A good death. Happy and irresponsible by the sea wall.

But wait, Ah- he counter-countered. If it _had_ to be in winter...  
Somewhere moody. Absolute zero. The winter _deliberate_. Reykjavic vikings and frozen waterfalls and aurora borealis and Christine’s naked body steaming as she emerged from a hot spring.

  
Moscow in the snow; unrelenting Russian snow. War and Peace and the Bolshoi. Fires and making love on fur hearthrugs and vodka and Rimsky Korsakov.

“Snow?” She had said, wrinkling her nose. The negotiations drew to a close. 

But for now, tonight, he had to go home and tell her that he had ruined it.

Their honeymoon.

Deliberately and ruthlessly. Had pushed it to the back of his mind while he focused on the tangle of logistics in front oh him. He hadn't stopped think to ask. 

  
He had called in every favour, bargained with chamber groups and acoustic soloists and school groups and the Rocky kids and the Shaw society. Cleared out January. Rearranged and cut and pasted and triple booked the entire month of February to make up for it.

  
No time to even put a thumbtack in a map, nevermind go anywhere.

  
He unlocked the door, opened it slowly. Dreading.

Her eyes fluttered open, blinking in the lamplight, smile softly dawning. She reached up and folded him against her, pulled the blankets around him, put her hand to his chest, his heavy heart. “Come here, I missed you,”

  
He kissed her hand and made his confession.

  
She rolled over to face him.

  
“The place has been there for hundreds of years. They can probably wait for us for a couple more months.”

  
She brushed aside a wayward lock of his hair, still damp from the shower; kissed his forehead, down the side of his face.

  
“Oh, you missed some snow,”  
She picked a sodden paper snowflake from behind his ear and he sighed. He had ruined their honeymoon and infested their home with yet more paper snow. They would find it on themselves, on the dog, in the furniture- everywhere -for months.

  
She interlaced her fingers with his and gently pulled him down over her, rested his hand on the pillow over her head while she worked out the knot in his shoulder.

  
She was mumbly, still blurred with sleep  
But so warm, and wise, haloed auburn and gold in the light.

  
Her fingertips found the right place exactly, smoothed him out, brought him down. Safe home now.

  
“I don’t want to do this to you,” he said. “Not again. I keep feeling like it happened to me, everything was decided so quickly, but I’m the one who made the decision. It’s not an outside force. Scheduling. I do it, I did it. I should have asked you first. I don’t want to be someone who does this to you. Disappoints you.”

“I _am_ a bit sad. Disappointed. Will be, when I’m awake. Get ready for morning-me. She may have some things to say. Opinions.” But he wasn’t ready to laugh about it yet. Too soon.

  
She tried to undo the downturn of his mouth with a kiss. It was stubborn.

  
“I’m just disappointed in general, not in you. We both walked into this with our eyes open. _Being the boss._ There’s a reason everyone says we’re crazy to both work for ourselves. This is the reason. This is what we decided to do to ourselves. Voluntarily. It _is_ crazy. I’ll do the same to you, again, before long. Hazard of the trade.”

  
“That was a dinner. This is a-”

  
“Another thing we can do another time. Easily. It’s a couple hundred to reschedule everything, I made sure. ”

  
“It’s supposed to be special- you planned it-”

  
“It will be. It doesn’t matter when. And my plan was to make us both happy and force you to stop working for a few days. At least I’m happy right now. Aren’t you?”

  
He didn’t answer, just buried his face in her hair.

  
“I love this,” she answered for him.

  
She ran a hand down his back, shifted herself more fully against him, under him.

  
“And I don’t think you dislike this,”

  
He pressed his lips against her neck, evaluating.

  
“You could go work for someone else, you know,” she told him. “Take home the same cheque every two weeks, take the same three weeks off every year. You could go work admin at the Civic Centre. Book comedians and bands. Argue with reception about the goddamn photocopier. Go to a resort in Cancun every march break. Oh all inclusive. Full of drunks complaining to the servers. About towels or the weather. How something is a minor inconvenience here in paradise. Fighting over beach chairs. Peeing in the swim up bar,”

  
“Don’t say things like that while you’re- doing things like that,”

  
She laughed. She didn’t need to see his face to know his expression  
But she had mercy upon him.

  
“I know you. And I know that life isn’t you. So we do this life.”

  
He finally returned her kiss. Redoubled.

  
“You had to say yes to these concerts. Had to. And you have to be here for them. We both know it. Can you imagine trying to go anywhere or do anything else when you know this is happening back here? You would be impossible.”

  
“Local man found stabbed by wife. Well deserved.”

  
“Local man drives wife crazy by pacing around Cartagena hotel room. Literally wears hole into surface of the earth by pacing. Creates sinkhole. Destroys entire Unesco heritage city. Throws babies and elderly into sinkhole and ocean while running to get enough bars on phone. Calls office manager, demands be put on speakerphone, yells opinions and musical history facts at staff and musicians throughout concert while descending to own death. Is ridiculous.”

  
“Local man lucky his wife puts up with him ruining their honeymoon,”

  
“Oh, you were lost the second Lily gave that girl your number. And you know it. Baby’s first Stradivarius." She sighed. "I wish Dad... Oh, Dad would have lost his mind. Did she bring it? Did you get to see it?”

  
“I got to _hold it_. And she played for me,”

  
“Was it amazing?”

  
“It- it-”

  
She laughed again. Her man speechless. This was rare.

  
“She’s trying to get Marie Xiang. To play. They were housemates. She’s going to play. My theatre. My piano. Hero Morena and _Marie fucking Xiang_.”

“Do you need a minute? Alone?”

He nodded against her.

“.... Are you going to be weird about it? Going to lick the keys when she’s done, or something,”

“ _Obviously_ ,”

  
“How am I going to keep you off the stage?”

  
He thought. It took a moment. “You have to tie me to a mast and promise not to untie me until it’s over, no matter what I say,”

  
“But what if you start saying sexy smart stuff and I can’t resist?”

  
“ _If?_ If I _start?_ ”

  
She sighed. There he was. “What about when you are continuously saying all of the sexy and smart stuff,”

  
“I need you to be strong for me.”

  
“I don’t know. You’re my weakness.”

  
“Thank you for letting me ruin everything.”

  
“Well, you’re lucky you’re my favourite.”

  
“I love you.”

  
“I love sleep. And you.”


End file.
